Good day, CharterFolk.
Sometimes the nonsensicalness is stunning to behold.
You may have seen that a judge in West Virginia is attempting to throw the state’s whole new charter school law into chaos.
Her argument?
I quote verbatim.
“There is no right under the West Virginia Constitution to attend a publicly subsidized school of one’s choice.”
Got that?
By implication, there is apparently a right to attend a school not of your choice.
Of which, sadly, there are many in West Virginia.
The state is seeing an absolutely historic implosion in public school enrollment, one of the most pronounced in the country …
… while schools that parents actually want to send their kids to are deemed unconstitutional.
Next door in Maryland, they’re trying another approach:
What’s the state’s proposed solution to “decades of fighting?”
Letting district schools swipe a fifth of charter school funding.
The new formula would allow school districts to deduct between 15% and 19% from the amount a charter school gets for educating each child, according to the state.
It’s another way of saying that “there is no right to attend a school of one’s choosing.”
Meanwhile, CharterFolk across the country keep forging on to the contrary.
I loved this picture of Lisa Grover at the National Alliance testifying about North Dakota’s charter school law.
Doing what the National Alliance does.
Adding another state to the map.
Contending with forces that would set our movement back.
Pushing on for more charter schools everywhere.
Last month their enrollment report showed that we had 111,349 more students attending charter schools than the year before.
While district enrollment dropped by about twice that amount.
Attesting to the fact that, one way or another, parents are going to get their kids to schools of their choosing.
Last week the South Carolina association had its annual conference. Afterward I spoke to Kevin Mason, the CEO of the association, and he reports that there is no end in sight to the amazing growth that has happened there.
In Iowa, a charter school law that was revised just a few years ago is already having statewide impact.
Indianapolis charter schools keep blazing new trails.
Oklahoma City charter schools are now following suit.
But this is by no means a red-state-only phenomenon.
Delaware has one of the highest charter school enrollment’s in the country, and it’s still growing.
The Colorado governor is opting into to the new federal tax credit program …
… after having helped his state maintain its position as a national leader in the charter school movement.
In New Jersey, the Governor-elect has appointed Harry Lee, CEO of the New Jersey association, to her transition team …
… while the state appears to be waking up to the fact that New Jersey’s charter schools are a part of the solution to the state’s historic system of segregated schools.
Imagine that!
The only schools that don’t segregate finally being understood to be an answer to segregation.
Meanwhile, individual school communities and funders alike remain on our decades long quest …
… indeed our centuries long quest …
… to prove the opposite of the nonsensicalness that was asserted this week in West Virginia.
Parents and students absolutely do have the right to attend schools of their choosing, and even more of them shall exercise that right in the years ahead.